Redskin Dead.

Neither man had time to reload so when the lawman closed on the Indian, they were both still armed with a knife and an empty pistol for a club.

The two opponents veered down a side alley.

Tyler Hogue leapt bodily and took the renegade from behind.
Down in the dirt, both men slashed and stabbed and bit and cursed.

The sheriff felt his blade sink deep into the Indian, killing deep!
Then Tyler caught something hard and unyielding in the side of his head and an intense white light filled his head…his whole world…then nothing.

He had no idea how long he lay prone in the dirt, but when he clambered to unsteady feet there was no sign of Mal Mal.

“Slippery bastard!” cursed Hogue as he staggered back to the saloon.
As he entered the bar room he stopped dead in his tracks.

Mal Mal lay on the saloon floor. A wide pool of blood had spread out below him. He was as dead as a man could ever be. A series of four ragged bullet holes decorated his ruined chest.
Angry crimson flowers plucked in the garden of death.

Then Tyler gagged on his own tongue.
“Jesus, NO!” he gasped. But no one paid him any heed.

The crowd were staring down at the corpses on the ground. Both renegade AND sheriff lay prostrate and still.

Tyler stared down at his own dead body and wailed.

Voices that sounded a thousand miles away commented…”At least the sheriff took him with him. The dirty Indian shot the poor sheriff dead before he hardly had a chance to do anything.”

Another voice; “Yeah, but Hogue plugged that redskin dead before he dropped. The sheriff was a tough son of a bitch after all!”

Another; “well at least the sheriff can rest in peace now, no more redskins where he is”.

An intense white light filled the bar-room and Tyler Hogue, Sheriff of the quiet town of Virtue flowed effortlessly into the oddly-luminous tunnel.

Deep into the path to whatever lay beyond, Mal Mal drew close to the dead sheriff’s spirit.

“Ready to go again lawman?” he jeered as he slashed with his knife.

“I’ll kill you!” swore the sheriff.

“You did that already, let’s fight!” said Mal Mal.

As they span and ripped and tore at each others disembodied souls, one man was in his own heaven and the other in his own Hell.